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Forty Years at El Paso, 1858-1898

Chapter 41: LONGMEIER—A CLOSE CALL.
By W. W. Mills
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About This Book

The author recounts forty years living in a frontier border town, offering personal recollections of daily life, irrigation and commerce, and the social character of a small adobe community. He describes military engagements and wartime experiences, shifting political contests and Reconstruction-era disputes, and complex cross-border relations with the neighboring republic. Episodes of crime, feuds, assassination attempts, and law enforcement recur alongside anecdotes about mail contracts, transportation over the plains, and legal battles over property. Interwoven are portraits of local figures, reflections on enemies and alliances, and practical sketches of travel, governance, and survival in a remote region.

LONGMEIER—A CLOSE CALL.

In the bad times soon after the coming of the first railroad, I returned to El Paso as deputy United States marshal, and encountered many strangers, and was called to the custom house to appraise some liquor which had been smuggled by one Longmeier. Although I had nothing to do with the seizure of the liquor, Longmeier thought I had, or else he thought it no harm to kill a deputy marshal, anyhow.

That night, while sitting at supper with my back to a window which opened on the common (which window had a hanging curtain), I heard the landlord call from the outside: “Mills, get your pistol; a man is going to kill you.” The landlord, John Woods, colored (who was afterwards killed by a policeman), had found Longmeier crouched at the window, pistol in hand, trying to find an opening through the curtain, and when asked what he was doing, replied that he was going to kill the d—n deputy marshal.

Longmeier fled and went to Silver City, and was soon after killed by a man of his own class.